Monday, January 22, 2007

Secret Lovers; Ode to Luther

1st go read the previous post then come back, this will make sense then.

It has always been my incredible good luck to do as the Great man Luther Vandross said, “If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with”, over the years. Hang on while I turn up the volume on this here Damian Marley song and pour me-self a finger or two of gin. Sip, smack my lips, aaaaahhhhhh!! Rite, lets get on with it shall we.

Yesterday I ran into Nancy as she was sneaking out of her office to run an errand in town, she gave me a hug, I gave her rather svelte body the once over then she popped her engagement ring in my face. She’s getting married this August, a week after Lolo finally makes an honest woman outta Rita. Damn. ‘Course I did the polite thing and said how lucky Andrew is and all that and promptly forgot what I was doing to walk her down to Uganda House. When we ran into Fatboy outside the head office of Cherie’s bank and she introduced my ass as her oldest boyfriend, you know I was like that’s the shit right there!

By the way if anyone got the 1st 4 episodes of 24 season 6, would you like hook a brotha up? Man, Fatboy got them but no way he gon let me take them outta his house and you know its just not kosher sitting all up in another dude’s crib to catch you some Jack Bauer; so if you got the hookup, puff, puff, pass … Baz taught me that by the way, yeah he been a real good influence on my life.

Nancy was my first one and only true love. Before Fazy, Peaches, CuCu & u, Kikaazi. She was in P5D and I was in P6D. She sat at the same desk with Pamela, who was also my one true and only love but that’s a story for another day. Little, now big, Mark Ssesanga sat between them. They all sat like next to the window in the corridor to the loos. Man, I would go to the loos like every 10 minutes just so I could make eye contact with, inevitably, all three of them; what would happen was that I would very slowly drift into view and catch Nancy’s eye – she has the most arresting eyes I ever saw, then Pamela on the other side would – thru some female intuition thing - cotton on to what was happening so she too would turn and I’d catch her eye then Mark would turn to see what was going on, prolly hoping to see some fly P6 girl but waapi, I always loved the look of disappointment mixed with awe on his face everytime he realised it was only I. He could have reported me to Ms. Tekiba, senior woman teacher, or some such thing but he couldn’t; afterall I was Deputy Head Boy, on my way to full Head Boy. I was an enemy he did not want.

Then end of year came, Pamela’s parents took her to Namagunga Primary and Nancy’s took her to Kabinja leaving me … and Mark. LOL. I moved on to other pursuits like maybe passing PLE and did I mention I used to sit with Rita above; Lolo’s soon to be fiancée? Damn small world. Never got over those two chicks and didn’t see them that much through the years until I was in “A” level and we went over to Gungas for a drama show. I was walking outta the main hall up the little staircase that sorta leads up towards the tennis courts – mugging equipment & costumes - when at the top of the staircase who do I encounter but Nancy. It was such a charged re-union I don’t remember little else apart from the way she stood and just looked at me; she has such amazing posture – she’s a national swimmer by the way - and those eyes! I was drowning in those eyes and just reaching for the light, I just wanted to be in the light my brother! Tell your neighbour “In the light my brother/sister!”

Then picture this; those days school buses were few, so most of us made do with trucks yeah, old school Tata trucks, so there we are chilling in the company of all these fine chicks, me and Jeremy – who’d been my health prefect in primo – and was now my HP just outside of the Gungas main hall, all resplendent in our Blazers when guess what Mr. Basoga the truck driver does? He guns the bloody truck which is parked in front of the gate and we think, “thanks mate, that means we got another 30 minutes”… Wapi, as we start to crawl towards the truck, Jeremy and I, the guy stepped on the gas and hightailed it out of the gate. Instantly we shot each other horrified looks along the lines of;

Me: dude, where Basoga going?J: he’s driving off stupid!Me: well, stop him, u the HP; don’t he know u aint on board yet?J: does it look like he care?Me: well then Negro, we best gets to running!!!J: oh hell no!! I’m the HP! I got a rep man!Me: u wanna walk to Mwiri?

It took all of 10 seconds of stupefied silence and then the entire lot of geezers around me erupted into a flurry of flying Blazers, askew ties, waving hands, pounding shoes and cursing that would make a fish market wife proud. We did not look back, we just ran! And then the bloody driver stopped the truck at the main road! Nah, he was prolly just waiting for traffic to chill so he could join the highway, and that was the last time in secondary school that I saw either of them.

The next time I saw Nancy was at an All Saints Cathedral camp at Taibah College School at the close of 2000. I was newly redeemed from the sinful ways of the world and eager to cement my new found faith; that and the fact that Loice was in town from Nairobi to attend the camp; she’s my Kenyan best friend. Nancy and I saw in the New Year together, seated alone at the bonfire in the centre of the Taibah Junior football field, just the two of us, huddled together against the cold. Praise the Lord. That’s when I first discovered that true love, like ours, is eternal.

Then she showed up at Charity’s wedding meeting 3 months ago with her boyfriend and I introduced her to my Poppet. She told me yesterday she was eager to see the woman who’d replaced her so her first question to Poppet on seeing us was, “Hi, I’m Nancy and u are?” I had to discreetly take her aside and point out that Peaches, to whom she was referring, was like 4 girlfriends ago. 6 if you count the Kissing Buddies. Aah, Peaches, that was the truest love of them all, all 4 odd years of it; it was also the chastest relationship of them all.

2 weeks ago I had a repeat of a moment much like the one in the previous post. Unless I’m very very stoned – that’s more than a hint by the way - I will retain the details but this I will divulge, it was an eye opener. In a screaming way. Think Michael Jackson doing “Scream” on speed.

So here’s my conundrum. I meet a lovely young lady, we become friendly, date for 3 months then Julius steps in and she steps out. I see her again in like half a year and the fire’s still there. But by then I’m with the 2nd person after her and serious about that. Not so serious though that I will turn my back on a little Slap & Tickle, y’know, a little sum-sum for old times sake. So like even though I’m really a romantic at heart who believes in one woman created for me and all that, Julius has convinced me beyond reasonable doubt that any one of a 100 women could be that One, y’know what I mean? I’m figuring this year, in return, I’ll just let Julius sow his wild oats and get his nasty mojo out of my system so I can go back to being a nice safe goody two shoes who gets referred to as a “really sweet guy” by chicks I’d rather be shagging.

10 Comments:

whoever said it is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all deserves to be shot on sight!!dude im in the same predicament..about the battle between Deg and julius..thats an everlasting battle..whoever ur most comfortable wit,shall win but the ocassional hankering for Deg will be there..or is it the other way round!!

@deg: dont let Julius drown out deg for good. you know he's an illusion. when he dies off for good, deg might be too irrelevant. and we dont want that, do we? and i'm not even preaching. You are more 'religious' than i am, y'know.

@iwaya: thanks, mate. when St. Peter asks me what the world thought about me at the Pearly Gates, i know what to say.

i know Rita. isnt it strange how we meet people and keep on meeting them throught our lives? Its like we are on an island with the same group of people and we can't get get off no matter where we go. I remember the first time Lolo saw Rita. he saw me talking to her and asked me if she were my sis. I guess that was his way of finding out if he had a chance. it was at some Taibah thingy. now they are getting married.

but i'd seen her earlier. Back then i had a massive crush on her myself. She came with the Sagali crowd for Sosh.

@cheri: "U keep referring to "the One" in this particular post....any chance u're talking about Ivan????" you are the bomb. scratch that, you are the whole war.

"Hang on while I turn up the volume on this here Damian Marley song and pour me-self a finger or two of gin. Sip, smack my lips, aaaaahhhhhh!! Rite, lets get on with it shall we!" -Most beautiful!!! Wish i had written those lines!!

while i believe in not knocking it until u've tried it, i think "The One" is a wee bit skinny 4 my liking. that and he aint got nothing on Laurence Fishburne. gal, i'm telling u, if Larry called me today, i would like so totally be on the next plane to Californication!